Transcript General Psychology: Social (I)

Social Psychology
Part I
Dr. William G. Huitt
Valdosta State University
Last revised: May 2005
Summary
• A human being is inherently
– biological
– conditioned by the environment
– able to gather data about the world through the
senses and organize that data
– emotional
– intelligent (adapt to, modify, and select environments)
– able to create and use knowledge
– able to form concepts, think rationally
– able to use language
Social Psychology
• Social psychology
– The study of how the actual, imagined, or implied
presence of others influences the thoughts, feelings,
and behavior of individuals
• Major topics
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Social perception
Attraction
Conformity, obedience, compliance
Group influence
Attitudes and attitude change
Prosocial behavior
Aggression
Prejudice and discrimination
Social Perception
• Impression formation
– Primacy effect
• The tendency for an overall impression of another to be
influenced more by the first information that is received
about that person than by information that comes later
• Any information that is consistent with the first impression
is likely to be accepted, thus strengthening the impression
• Information that does not fit with the earlier information is
more likely to be disregarded
Social Perception
• Attributions
– Inferences about the cause of one’s own or
another’s behavior
– Situational attribution
• Attributing a behavior to some external cause or factor
operating in the situation; an external attribution
– Dispositional attribution
• Attributing a behavior to some internal cause, such as a
personal trait, motive, or attitude; an internal attribution
Social Perception
• Attributions
– Inferences about the cause of one’s own or
another’s behavior
Social Perception
• Attributions
– Actor-observer effect
• The tendency to attribute one’s own behavior primarily to
situational factors and the behavior of others primarily to
internal or dispositional factors
– Self-serving bias
• The tendency to attribute personal successes to
dispositional causes and failures to situational causes
Attraction
• Factors influencing attraction
– Proximity
• Geographic closeness; a major factor in attraction
– Mere-exposure effect
• The tendency of people to develop a more positive
evaluation of some person, object, or other stimulus with
repeated exposure to it
• Our own moods and emotions, whether positive or
negative, can influence how much we are attracted to
people we meet
– We tend to like the people who also like us—or who
we believe like us—a phenomenon called
reciprocity or reciprocal liking
Attraction
• Physical attractiveness
– People of all ages have a strong tendency to prefer
physically attractive people
– Perceptions of attractiveness are based on features
that are approximately the mathematical average of
the features in a given general population
– Symmetry also an important factor
– Males and females across many different cultures
have similar ideas about the physical attractiveness
of members of the opposite sex
Attraction
• Physical attractiveness
– Halo effect
• The tendency to infer generally positive or negative traits in
a person as a result of observing one major positive or
negative trait
– Initial vs long-term
• Suggest that the impact of physical attractiveness is
strongest in the perception of strangers
• Once we get to know people, other qualities assume more
importance
Romantic Attraction and Mating
• Matching hypothesis
– The notion that people tend to have spouses, lovers, or friends
who are approximately equivalent in social assets such as
physical attractiveness, intelligence, SES, etc.
– Partners is first marriage tend to choose mates with needs and
personalities that are complementary rather than similar to
their own
– Generally men and women across cultures rate these four
qualities as the most important in mate selection:
1. mutual attraction/love
2. dependable character
3. emotional stability and maturity
4. pleasing disposition
Romantic Attraction and Mating
• Sternberg’s Triangular theory of love
– Sternberg’s theory that three components—
intimacy, passion, and decision/commitment—singly
and in various combinations produce seven different
kinds of love:
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Liking
Infatuated love
Empty love
Romantic love
Fatuous love
Companionate love
Consummate love
Conformity, Obedience,
and Compliance
• Conformity
– Changing or adopting an attitude or behavior to be
consistent with the social norms of a group or the
expectations of other people
– Social norms
• The attitudes and standards of behavior expected of
members of a particular group
• Researchers have found that teenagers who attend
schools where the majority of students are opposed to
smoking, drinking, and drug use are less likely to use these
substances than peers who attend school where the
majority approves of these behaviors
Conformity, Obedience,
and Compliance
• Conformity
– People with specific pattern on three of the Big Five
personality traits are more likely to conform
• Low in Neuroticism (emotional instability)
• High in Agreeableness (pleasant, cooperative)
• High in Conscientiousness (dependable, persevering)
Conformity, Obedience,
and Compliance
• Obedience
– Clearly, most people must obey most rules and
respect those in authority most of the time if society
is to survive and function
– Milgram
• Did an experiment in which each trial involved three
teachers (two confederates and one naive participant)
• One confederate was instructed to refuse to continue after
150 volts, and the other confederate after 210 volts
• In this situation, 36 out of 40 naive participants defied the
experimenter before the maximum shock could be given
• The presence of another person who refused to go along
gave many of the participants the courage to defy the
authority
Conformity, Obedience,
and Compliance
• Compliance
– Acting in accordance with the wishes, the
suggestions, or the direct request of another person
Conformity, Obedience,
and Compliance
• Compliance
– Foot-in-the-door technique
• A strategy designed to secure a favorable response to a
small request at first, with the aim of making the person
more likely to agree later to a larger request
– Door-in-the-face technique
• A strategy in which someone makes a large, unreasonable
request with the expectation that the person will refuse but
will then be more likely to respond favorably to a smaller
request at a later time
– Low-ball technique
• A strategy to gain compliance by making a very attractive
initial offer to get a person to agree to an action and then
making the terms less favorable
Group Influence
• Social facilitation
– Any positive or negative effect on performance due
to the presence of others, either as an audience or
as co-actors
– Studies on social facilitation found that, in the
presence of others, performance improves on tasks
that people do easily, but suffers on difficult tasks
Group Influence
• Group polarization
– The tendency of members of a group, after group
discussion, to shift toward a more extreme position
in whatever direction they were leaning initially –
either more risky or more cautious
– When evidence both for and against a particular
stand on a given topic is presented, group
polarization is an infrequent consequence
Group Influence
• Groupthink
– The tendency for members of a very cohesive group
to feel such pressure to maintain group solidarity
and to reach agreement on an issue that they fail to
weigh available evidence adequately or to consider
objections and alternatives
– To avoid groupthink in the workplace, managers
should withhold their own opinions when problemsolving and decision-making strategies are being
considered
Group Influence
• Social roles
– Socially defined behaviors considered appropriate
for individuals occupying certain positions within a
group
– Philip Zimbardo
• Simulated a prison experience
• College student volunteers were randomly assigned to be
either guards or prisoners
• The role playing became all too real – so much so that the
experiment had to be ended in only six days